Undertow - Another Cinevate Production

[Dennis Wood]

We'll be posting daily interviews and behind the scenes pics from Piotr Skowronski's baby, "Undertow". Piotr successfully competed for funding for the project and supported by Cinevate, has been arranging the shoot for months. I'm personally fascinated by the passion, dedication and perseverence that film-makers muster to make a script come to life and to this end we're attempting to immerse ourselves in this project.

You'll see the EX1/Brevis flip, Ballare dolly, and jib used in combinations ranging from car mounts, rotating camera rig, and a whole multitude of situations. We'll be attempting to capture the essence of what goes into a production like this, and certainly a daily glimpse of Piotr's life througout the process. The entire team here will be involved with Hubert doing BTS shots, Nick as the AD, Chris adding his years of professional grip experience, and myself as a technical consultant/co-producer. Piotr's crew numbers 16, so you'll get an idea of the logistics to come

You'll see the first pics and Piotr's "entrance" interview posted here over the next few days.

The trailer at 720p: http://www.cinevate.com/images/undertow720p.mov (80MB)
The trailer at 640x360: http://www.cinevate.com/images/undertow.mov (39MB)

[Dennis Wood]

Ok, here's the pre-film interview with Piotr, Scott and myself. It's compressed to 47MB, at 21 minutes long....a fairly long one. It's also the first thing ever shot in our newly renovated studio. It's a green screen behind us but I played with some CC to make it a little easier on the retinas



http://www.cinevate.com/images/undertow1.mov

We'll be posting a clip and/or bts shots every day or two as the shooting commences. Scott and Sarah are sequestered in our studio as I type this getting their kit all sorted out. They'll be using the HVX/MP.1 flip/Lomo lenses on sticks, shoulder mount, and steadicam. We'll also be doing a day of car mounts. Should be interesting

[Evan C. King]

So you guys decided to shoot on an hvx instead of the ex1? I haven't got to watch the video yet (I will tonight) so forgive me if you answer the question in that.

[Dennis Wood]

Yes, the HVX was chosen over the EX1 for several reasons:

1. Piotr is much more familiar shooting with it.
2. Scott wasn't happy with CMOS sensors for car mounts (rolling shutter).
3. Our EX1 fix optics aren't the production ones...meaning the optics are adequate for testing, but the production versions have a much higher spec. In other words, I wasn't comfortable giving them prototype optics to shoot a small feature on.

More to come today...

[Dennis Wood]

Ok, here's a clip from today, right before a cube van and a pile of crew arrived to spirit off the gear...



The 14.5 MB clip: http://www.cinevate.com/images/undertow2.mov

[Dennis Wood]

Clip 3 from day 3. These shots were taken between 12 and 3 am during an all night shoot



http://www.cinevate.com/images/undertow3.mov

[Dean Yurke]

Hey Dennis, what's happening with this? I was really enjoying the updates. More please.

Cheers

Dean.

[Dennis Wood]

Dean, wasn't sure if there was a ton of interest out there on this...so I've been shy on updates. Here's some bts shots:

[Dennis Wood]

And some frame grabs (low res):

[Evan C. King]

Cool I always love bts pics. I've been watching the videos too, so if you've got anymore, post em up!

[Dennis Wood]

I've got the fourth installment on the editing box so I'll fire a rough cut up. At this point the shoot is wrapped and I spoke with Piotr today about his progress on the cuts. He's very happy about the footage but not entirely thrilled with the HVX200 noise levels. I suspect the 200a might be more to his liking.

[Dean Yurke]

Excellent, love the pics. Can't wait for the latest video. Much better to see the brevis in action opposed to a demo.
I have the HVX and it's noisy especially if you're viewing on an LCD at gamma 1.0. Final Cut should default to gamma 0.818 and it looks much better. But when it's projected at the correct gamma it looks amazing.

Oh BTW I upgraded to the cf1le and it now lets me use longer lenses and there's less vignetting, so thanks for that. So I'm now saving my pennies for the cf3le!

Thanks Dennis, I really appreciate all the work you put into cinevate,

Dean.

[Dennis Wood]

Dean, thanks for your kind words. We're just finishing edits on the CF1/2/3 comparison clip and every time we get out and shoot something like this, I'm reminded of why we do this

Here's another pile of production stills: http://picasaweb.google.com/milosz.skow ... tionStills

[Dennis Wood]

We'll be attending the premiere tonight of the just completed "Undertow". CBC, Canada's National Radio, interviewed Piotre, Milosh, and myself a few days ago to discuss a bit of the film and what it represents in our little hamlet

Undertow Interview from September 10th Edition of CBC's Radio North : 7.4MB MP3

[Dennis Wood]

A big congratulations to the cast and crew. Piotre did an amazing job with cinemography, score, editing etc. etc. Following the performance, one of the two fellows who did the score entertained the crowd with one of the tracks played live and acoustic...awesome. The second artist is in Berlin, so we didn't meet him. I went up and spoke a few words after the screening and found myself surprisingly emotional about the whole thing. I'm always humbled when our bits of microprocessor, carbon and aluminum are used to create stories like this ... which had folks emotionally and physically engaged with the story. It was great to be so involved in this production which was not just Piotre, but the three professional actors, (thanks ACTRA!) and a very commited crew of 18 some people behind the scenes, shooting over 2 weeks in both Toronto and Thunder Bay.

Now we just need Piotre to do up a trailer in his spare time...

[Aram Bauman]

I love these 2 shots. The skin looks so smooth in these. Good luck with the movie.



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[Dennis Wood]

Congratulations to Piotr and company for receiving the "People's Choice" award at the Bay Street Film Festival

I've just uploaded the trailer:

720p: http://www.cinevate.com/images/undertow720p.mov (80MB)
640x360: http://www.cinevate.com/images/undertow.mov (39MB)

Enjoy.